Anonymous wrote:
John Davies wrote:
Recent article in the manchester evening news, published last month. It may be of inerest to someone.
[URL]
http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/ ... _year.html [/URL]
Best Wishes
John Davies
John,
I like reading what a journalist sees, tell me do you earn £30,000 or do you take £30,000?
big gap there?
Geoff
Geoff, I think we are all aware that the press have no equal when it comes to sensationalism but in this case, they are not that far from the truth.
They are of course guilty of making a statement, without first considering the whole facts.
In order to earn 30.000 net per annum, one would have to gross considerably more.
Then you have to consider the three types of people who drive cabs, for example “owner-driver single track” “owner driver double tracked” and “renter”.
Although my colleagues may frown upon it, I will give you a breakdown of what the potential is for earnings in Manchester.
The Manchester Cab trade is heavily reliant on the very large student population, for nearly five months of the year earnings reflect the absence of this lucrative income.
I will give you the earnings potential based on the student terms, which run for approximately 30 weeks of the year. You may deduct up to 25% to 40% for those weeks that the students are away.
More often than not, a normal track here in Manchester, runs from 6 till 6.
On a Friday and Saturday if a person were to start their night track at 6 p.m. and finish at 6 a.m. he would most likely clear 200.00 each night, possibly more. If the same hours were applied on a Thursday night, you would no doubt clear 150.00. If a driver worked the other four nights, you are probably looking at an additional conservative estimate of 280.00.
If you add it all up, it comes to 830.00.
We now have to consider the potential earnings of Day drivers.
When considering a day driver’s earnings there is an additional factor to consider such as Radio Work. Radio work can contribute considerably to the earnings of a driver who has the benefit of a good Radio system.
A day driver with a radio can do in excess of 200 miles per day on a regular basis. That should tell us that he is earning close to 200 per day. However, most of the work may be account work and not all of the work undertaken will be calculated on clock fare, some of it will be based on mileage at a discounted fixed rate. Therefore it would be safe to say that 200 miles could easily equate to around 150.00 per day
A driver working without a radio has to rely on rank and street work. Therefore, it would be fair to assume that he would earn considerably less than someone who has the benefit of a radio system.
You would have to assume that a day driver working without a radio would probably be averaging around 80.00 to 90.00 a day from the hours 6 to 6.
Now we come to the full complexity of earnings here in Manchester.
Above I have given you a brief run down of the earnings potential mainly for night drivers but consider this. We have a major Airport here in Manchester and the earnings between town work and Airport work can be very different. We have certain types of airport workers too, some Airport workers will never entertain working the Town, once they have dropped off in the city they will go straight back to the Airport empty. Others might work the early mornings at the Airport getting trade from the London shuttles etc. and then work the town for the rest of the day.
In the main the only time you ever see Airport workers in Town is at weekend nights but as I said there are a great many who just wont touch the city under any circumstances.
So, you have a situation where earnings at the Airport can sometimes be very lucrative and at other times, they can be dismal.
Now consider the additional payment an owner-driver gets from tracking his or her cab out. At present, you won’t get a night track on a decent cab for less than 195.00. A day track will set you back at least 165.00
Now consider an owners out goings, if they have an additional driver and are on a Radio system, fully comp insurance, and they keep their vehicle well maintained and serviced most owners will have out goings of around five grand a year and that’s excluding any vehicle repayments.
The Breakdown of earnings is not as straight forwards as the Manchester Evening news implies, simply because every driver has their own way of working. Some might only work half a week, some may work seven days a week others might only work 8 hours a day some may work a full 12 hours.
The beauty of being a cab driver is that you can work when you want but I know from experience that other industries earn far more than cab drivers for the equivalent numbers of hours.
Best wishes
John Davies.